Herstory
Yumo Cheng is a filmmaker and artist based in Berlin.
She was born and raised in Wuhan, China, a punk city, an oriental Chiago, a very "jianghu" jungle, which became known worldwide in a poisonously dramatic way a few years ago.
Growing up under strong controls and suffocating love, her memories of childhood and teenagehood are of a deformed middle finger, a slap after her 92-points grade, the lies about having blue hair, an extracurricular education institution called "Way to Peking University", a heated fight over dropping a painting class and the summer of 2012, when she didn't have to attend so many classes and watched over 200 classic films in two months.
During her Bachelor studies in Central China Normal University, 4 girls shared a room of 10 square-metres. 156 girls shared 6 showers. There was hot water for only 7 hours a day. It was a truly mono-communist, punk life. She explored erotics, and the pain and melancholia it caused in the underground art scene of Wuhan. She felt Erotics was the only way of freedom.
Last year, after completing her studies in literature and film at the University of Zurich, she was deported by the Swiss immigration authorities. With the help of her alliance, she managed to move to Berlin.
Experiencing an identity crisis, she found herself as a legal alien, a walking target of white men's education, "Miss Virus", "Lady Corona", an object of the gaze, and a madam butterfly. She often felt that she was losing her language and suffering from aphasia. She felt so gagged all the time. With the unstoppable urge to shout out and the force to resist, she began to conceptualise her experiences through performance art, photography, films and objects making. Sincen, she can breath better.
While in China, her artistic practice was motivated by burgeoning creativity and the quest for freedom. Then after coming to Europe, being a queer immigrant, her art is the only way for her to better survive in her reality.
Yumo is a survivor of many different kinds of violence. She has made up her mind that she will never again be a slave to her family, to men, to the White, to the Leviathan. She is trying.
BIO
Education：
09/2019-07/2021 Master of Arts, University of Zürich: Literary Studies
09/2015-06/2019 Bachelor of Arts, Central China Normal University
(one of Chinese “985” “211” universities): English Literature
Work Experience:
06/2022-present Co-curator at New Gen Berlin Film Festival, https://bngcff.com
06/2021-present Filmmaker at University of Zürich, Science Communication Department
01/2021-present Plotting Assistant at Christian Frei Filmproduktionen GmbH
09/2022--present Co-curator at Filmstelle, VSETH/VSUZH
06/2018-09/2018 Literature Editor at Changjiang Literature&Art Publishing House
01/2018-02/2018 Bilingual Assistant Producer at Wuhan Broadcasting and TV Station
2015-present Freelancer photographer and model
Exhibitions/Performance/Film Festivals:
05/2023 Alien without extraordinary abilities, with East Alien Company, Asian Performance Art Lab, Berliner Ring Theater
05/2022 Orhwurm (as performer), Porn Film Festival Vienna
04/2022 Sewing Souls, Global Science Film Festival, Zurich (Best Film)
03/2023 Grand Gay Wedding, 706 youth space, Berlin
02/20223 Grand Gay Wedding, Synnica, Frankfurt am Main
11/2022 Orhwurm (as performer), PronyDays, Zurich
07/2022 Grand Gay Wedding, Material, Zurich
07/2022 PERFORM| VARI | ÉTE, Zentralwaescherei, Zurich
02/2022 Sex – An Exhibition Around Sex, Toni Areal, Zurich
02/2022 Devine Feminity, Shugen Gallery, Shanghai
09/2021 What do you know about Molly, Global Science Film Festival, Zurich
06/2021 Meaningful Struggle, Scifilmit, Zurich (Jury prize)
Publications:
01/2021 Visual Essay: The Violence of Fashion, SwitchTube
04/2020 Visual Essay: Prostitute in Victorian Age, SwitchTube
02/2020 Visual Essay: Hitchcock Haunts Palma, SwitchTube
12/2019 Visual Essay: Hitchcock’s Phlias, SwitchTube
09/2018 The Origin of Others — A Dialogue between Race and Culture, Folk Story, ISSN1005-3948; CN22-1035/I
08/2017 “Reading Yukio Mishima”, Zhi Japan,
ISBN978-7-5086-7751-4, (China’s most famous magazine on Japanese culture)
Awards:
2022 Best Short Film, Sewing Souls, Global Science Film Festival
2021 Jury Prize (First Prize), Meaningful Struggle, SciFilmit
2021 Second Prize of Poster Presentation, A Series of Humanistic Thinking During COVID-19 Pandemic, StuCon (VSUZH)